Programs

Benefit Programs

Benefit Programs plays an important role in the efforts of federal, provincial, and territorial governments to provide support to families and children and to help reduce the depth of child poverty, by providing Canadians with income-based benefits, credits, and other services that contribute directly to their economic and social well-being. We administer four federal programs:

• the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB);
• the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) Credit;
• Children’s Special Allowances; and
• the Disability Tax Credit (DTC).

In addition, we leverage our federal delivery infrastructure to administer 17 ongoing benefit programs on behalf of the provinces and territories, such as the BC Family Bonus and the Saskatchewan Sales Tax Credit. In the past several years, we have also delivered four one-time payment programs for provinces, the most recent of which was the Nova Scotia Taxpayer Refund. In all, we issue over $12 billion in tax-free benefit payments and credits each year. We also supply information authorized by law to numerous federal, provincial, and territorial partners to support the delivery of their benefit and other income-based programs, including:

• National Child Benefit Supplement information to 11 jurisdictions;
• child benefit program information to six provinces; and
• income verification information to numerous provincial ministries.

Strategies and Key Initiatives

Benefit Programs plays a significant role in continuing to advance the Government’s Service to Canadians initiative. Our strategic outcome is that eligible families and individuals receive timely and correct benefit payments contributing to the integrity of Canada’s income security system.

To fulfil our objective, the CRA’s strategies in Benefit Programs are:

• Maintain quality services on telephone and self-service channels, and reduce the need to call;
• Maintain strong performance in the timely and accurate delivery of benefit payments;
• Maintain high program enrolment rates and increase client awareness;
• Ensure only entitled clients get benefits; and
• Improve program responsiveness and increase capacity to deliver new programs so federal, provincial, and territorial partners will choose to have the CRA administer programs on their behalf.

Maintain quality services on telephone and self-service channels and reduce the need to call

Person-to-person telephone service remains essential to many of our clients, especially to low-income clients who may lack easy access to the Internet. To maintain the telephone accessibility levels we have been providing to CCTB recipients, we will be developing a service standard for the CCTB telephone service in 2005-2006 and will implement it in 2006-2007.

While the telephone is the preferred method of contact for many of our clients, our accessibility strategy also includes reducing the need for clients to call by expanding the use of technology, which helps contain our costs because it lowers the demand on our telephone agents. Benefit Payments Online (BPO), part of “My Account”, gives clients a convenient single point of access on the Internet for information about their own benefit accounts. Enhancements to Benefit Payments On-line are in progress to increase the level of detail available to clients.

Maintain strong performance in the timely and accurate delivery of benefit payments

We issue almost 70 million payments each year to CCTB and GST/HST credit recipients, including payments under related provincial and territorial benefit and credit programs, virtually all in a timely manner. We also maintain high processing accuracy rates.

Development work is progressing on the Child and Family Benefits Online package, which will increase self-service and improve payment timeliness and accuracy by allowing clients to apply online for the CCTB and other benefits, as well as allow users to register their children for the GST/HST credit. Because of the scope of this undertaking, final implementation of the full package may not occur during this planning period.

Maintain high program enrolment rates and increase client awareness

Indications are that our outreach activities contribute to maintaining high program enrolment. We will continue to review the effectiveness of our communication tools to promote take-up rates among potential recipients and increase awareness of entitlements and obligations among existing clients. To this end, we will strive to maintain current relationships and seek out new opportunities to communicate benefit program information to existing and potential clients.

Ensure only entitled clients get benefits

We are developing new monitoring tools and processes, including quality assurance and validation techniques, to ensure that the right benefits are delivered to the right individuals.

We will continue to fine-tune our Veritas case management system to allow us to track and measure the impact of our validation programs by, for example, providing the dollar value of the adjustments we generate.

The four strategies and associated initiatives described above show how we plan to improve program delivery for clients. In turn, these enhancements to the CRA’s national benefit program delivery infrastructure makes the use of our platform more attractive to potential partners. Our fifth strategy deals with the service opportunities we are pursuing with governments.

Improve program responsiveness and increase capacity to deliver new programs so federal, provincial, and territorial partners will choose to have the CRA administer programs on their behalf

Fully engaging our partners and integrating our efforts with theirs is a major priority for the CRA. To achieve this, we regularly consult with our numerous partners, stakeholders, and external agencies. By pursuing available opportunities to expand our operations and offer more programs and services on behalf of partners, particularly provinces and territories, we aim to reduce the overall administrative cost of government to taxpayers by simplifying administration and eliminating duplication, limiting compliance burdens, and delivering higher levels of service.

The Income Verification Project is an ongoing initiative between the federal and provincial/territorial governments to exchange data using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) methodology. FTP allows the CRA to release limited taxpayer information, with client consent, using a secure, two-way, online electronic data exchange. This simplifies the administration of provincial income-tested benefit programs and reduces the need for CRA offices to release information over the counter. Nineteen programs are now in production or in the testing phase. Discussions to enrol other agencies are continuing.

The CRA is working with Social Development Canada (SDC) to automate and streamline the Old Age Security (OAS), Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) programs. These programs are administered by SDC, with the CRA providing authorized client information to support client entitlement and program delivery. By replacing current methods of exchanging client information for the GIS with FTP in 2005, service to clients will improve and senior citizens will be assured of receiving all the benefits to which they are entitled.

The Canada Learning Bond (CLB) and the Enhanced Canada Education Savings Grant (ECESG) are two new initiatives introduced in the 2004 federal budget that will be administered by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC). Both of these projects are being implemented in 2005, and their administration will be supported by the CRA with an electronic data exchange of National Child Benefit Supplement information (for the CLB) and income information (for the ECESG) using FTP.

Under the Disability Tax Measures Initiative, we are reviewing the administrative recommendations made by the Technical Advisory Committee on Tax Measures for Persons with Disabilities in their December 2004 Disability Tax Fairness report. Along with potential legislative changes, implementation of the recommendations (where feasible) will further our ongoing efforts to ensure that persons with disabilities are treated in a fair and equitable manner.

Service Standards Development

The Corporate Business Plan 2004-2005 to 2006-2007 indicated that we were developing a service standard for Disability Tax Credit claims filed outside the normal T1 assessing process. However, as a result of further analysis, it was determined that a separate service standard was not necessary, since processing DTC claims can be accommodated under existing T1 service standards.

Exhibit 5: Expected Results for Benefit Programs

Date modified:

2005-03-24